For anyone who has not seen this documentary, you need to. And anyone who has seen it, knows what I am talking about. What a horrifying situation that is happening in Sudan and Uganda. Children are being abducted out of their homes while they are sleeping so they can be enlisted in a rebel army. Other children are shot and murdered in front of their faces so the children will be desensitized. These children never get a chance to go to school, and when they are asked to draw a picture of ANYTHING, they draw blood, guns and death. These are children! Anywhere from 5 years old to 14! As teachers, we are taught to be suspicious of any our student’s drawing that have to do with violence at all, and here, all this children can draw is violence! Don’t get me wrong, I am not undermining the importance of abuse in the home, or any type of violence our children come to school with, but it sure puts things into perspective. What is being done to protect these children in Africa from the reality they face everyday. Please go to www.invisiblechildren.com and donate, or buy a t-shirt or a bracelet. Every little bit helps. I don’t know what else TO do, but I do know that this makes me want to go to Africa even more now after I convocate. Watching this movie tonight has re-sparked my passion for children, and I want to do everything I can, all the while knowing that all I really can do is pray.
Kindergarten August 14, 2008
Who really remembers their Kindergarten teacher anyway? You are 4 or 5 years old and you come to school so you can play in the sandbox, and climb on the monkey bars. Can a Kindergarten teacher really have any effect on their students at that young of an age?
I have been thinking a lot lately about how lost our teenage world seems. When Jon and I were at my parents house last night, my mom came home at 11:00pm fuming. She had just driven by some kid getting the crap kicked out of him across from a local elementary school. When she stopped and backed up, everyone ran away… including the kid. The week I wrote my post about teen girls, was the same week I dealt with a lot of issues with a couple of the teen girls I know. What is happening to our teenagers? The reason I am connecting Kindergarten with teenagers is because I am questioning my choice of grade levels to teach. I am specializing in Pre-K to 3 but is that where I should be? My heart is definitely for young children. I love how they learn and how they begin to understand things, but I am beginning to think that if I really want to have an effect on students, I should teach high school, or a higher grade where they may need a little bit more guidance.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that my job as a teacher is not to “fix” students. I don’t have the power to make choices for them or deliberately pursuade them to act a certain way… but I CAN see with my own eyes that a lot of the teens I meet need help, support and love. I know young children also have issues that need help and support, but the teenagers of today were three years old once! Does a Kindergarten teacher really make a difference?
No matter what grade I teach, my job and passion is to educate. I want to educate my students about maths, sciences, language and grammar, but I also want to educate them about life, love, relationships and society. Right now I don’t plan on changing what I want to specialize in, and as of this September 08 I will be pre-interning in a Pre-K class, but these past couple weeks has sure opened to my eyes to see that there are some other options open for me if I want to take them.
The Cries of the Hurting February 7, 2008
We try so hard to fight for social justice and equality among humans but today was another example of how our world is a desperate and hurting place. I went out for coffee with a friend of mine who is in social work. She was telling me the story of a little girl she works with. I’m going to call this little one Rebecca.
The vicious circle of poverty and abuse repeated itself in Rebecca’s life. Rebecca is 3. Years ago her grandma, a teenage mom got fed up and tired of caring for her new daughter, (let’s call her Daisy)… so the new mom put Daisy in a dumpster and left her. Clearly this would have a traumatizing effect on a young child and this little girl grew up with some serious issues. To no surprise, Daisy also became a teenage mom herself. She again had a little girl, Rebecca. I am not sure what pushed Daisy to the extreme, but Daisy also felt the need to abandon her child. A year and a half ago Rebecca made the news. Her mom had locked her, at 1 and a half years old in an apartment for 48 hours. The police had to break the door down to rescue the child. My heart is breaking as I type this. Put yourself in that room. What did Rebecca do for 48 hours? Could she even crawl? Imagine the horribleness of sitting in a dirty diaper for 2 days. Can you hear her hurting, desperate little cry? This is the cry of only one of our many hurting children in Regina, our country and this world.
As my friend was telling me this story, a disheveled man walks up to us in the coffee shop and asks us for money. As he talks, a bit of saliva leaks out of the side of his mouth and he is somewhat slurring his words. He tells us that his car broke down on the ring road and he needs money for gas. I search his eyes, questioning his motives. In my heart I doubt this man actually needs the money for gas, and I don’t want to fuel an addiction, but my friend and I pull out a small amount of change anyways… scared that he might actually be telling the truth. I try to offer him help, so I ask if he needs a ride, and he tries to tell me his plans but they don’t really make much sense. I tried to call my fiancee, but there was no answer. I don’t know if I should call a cab, or drive him myself. My friend and I both know we can’t drive him ourselves, but he tells me he is going to the nearby Safeway. That was the last I saw of him. Since I left the coffee shop I have been questioning my actions and I wish I could have done something more. Was this man just another product of poverty and addiction and has he resorted to begging for money? Or did he actually run out of gas? There’s also something I need to address, and I have left it for last. Would my actions/opinions/doubts have changed if he was white?
White Privilege January 22, 2008
We discussed in my Educational Foundations class today what it means for us as white people to have privileges over other cultures. I was amazed at how much I was a fish in water and couldn’t see what was going on because I am the privileged group. I don’t know if I can come to any conclusions of what I think or how I can deal with this as a teacher in a classroom yet. But slowly I am being changed to see the real world and the racism that is still alive and prevalent today. This is a YouTube video I found that just begins to talk about what we discussed this evening.
